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SBMM Ray4 HH - Pickup wiring diagram (and modifications)

#41
I bought a new double humbucker Ray 34 back in December. I'm happy to say my guy was able to rewire it in parallel from series to get consistent volume across the switching options. Also, it sounds virtually identical to the pre 2018 HH StingRays. Exact same as a regular Stingray but with more tonal options. Very pleased there.

What I am less pleased about was the truss rod wouldn't turn when I got it back home. Then after that was fixed I got it set up just the way I like it and couldn't for the life of me (or the luthier helping) get the fret buzz to go away across the strings, particularly in the lower register. We even leveled the frets. No good.

Now I've taken it back to the store and am trying to have them/Sterling replace it as a defective model. It's really a shame, because apart from the neck problems the sound & looks have been incredible & I like the heft. Also, a lot of the hardware nightmares people have brought up about these tuners sometimes hasn't happened yet.

The extra time, money & effort I've spent trying to get something to work which should've been 100% from the get go, only to have it fail, & struggling to get a replacement for an unusable bass I was initially very excited about has been quite disheartening.
 
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#42
I have this bass:

PXL_20230411_183717006small.jpg


The MM's are made of two split-coil Bartolini J's.

Would it be tonally redundant to get one of these:

Screenshot 2024-01-31 110825.png


The pickups wouldn't be the same and not in the same spots, but I still don't want to spend money to buy a bass if I already pretty much have that sound.
 
#43
I don't know if I'd say tonally redundant, but probably close. The pickup placement makes a huge difference, and the type also does along with series vs parallel & coil combination.

For example, if you took that Ray34 and rewired it in parallel (the normative musicman way), I guarantee it would sound quite a bit different than what you have.

I understand the urge not to double up on sounds, though. I have a Carvin loaded with soapbars, which sounds like a fatter Jazz bass, a Schecter P4 Exotic for the PBass thing, and the latest run of Ray34 HH pre-order with a popular top on the way. The only thing I plan on doing to the last one is to rewire it in parallel. Between those 3 I've basically got all the sounds I want...except for fretless, haha.
 
#45
Thanks a lot for your wiring diagram, very very helpful. I've replaced the original bridge pickup on my SBMM Ray 4 HH by an Aguilar AG4M. 2 wires from the start, tried to follow the main diagram but had issues with the phase, and had to try different combinations.
Finally, to find the real sound expected, I changed the order of the 4 wires on the pickup like this :
upload_2024-3-12_16-39-1.png
 
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#47
I just got this 2021 Sterling Ray35HH.. Sounded heavy and compressed in its original wiring with massive volume difference across modes. I rewired in parallel, and it totally sounds great. Thanks for this diagram @essej. it's a game changer. I noticed some shielding noise, so I shielded both the pickup and preamp cavities with copper foil and grounded it. It's quiet now and sounds even across all modes. TBH, I think I now have the stingray tone... Just 2 issues though, I couldn't reduce the relief and in trying to tighten it, I stripped the nut that held the wheel to the truss rod. I couldn't go any further, so I had to shim the neck. Accessories looks fragile also. I will be replacing the tuning machine and neck place screws. I stripped one of it when putting the bass together. I also have some cracks on the neck heel where the truss rod is located. Would fix that later on. It's a great bass.
 

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#48
JakesAy said:
I just got this 2021 Sterling Ray35HH.. Sounded heavy and compressed in its original wiring with massive volume difference across modes. I rewired in parallel, and it totally sounds great. Thanks for this diagram @essej. it's a game changer. I noticed some shielding noise, so I shielded both the pickup and preamp cavities with copper foil and grounded it. It's quiet now and sounds even across all modes. TBH, I think I now have the stingray tone... Just 2 issues though, I couldn't reduce the relief and in trying to tighten it, I stripped the nut that held the wheel to the truss rod. I couldn't go any further, so I had to shim the neck. Accessories looks fragile also. I will be replacing the tuning machine and neck place screws. I stripped one of it when putting the bass together. I also have some cracks on the neck heel where the truss rod is located. Would fix that later on. It's a great bass.
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Did the neck plate screw strip or did the wood strip? If the latter you can always put wood glue on a toothpick and shove it in the hole. That should give the screw enough bite.
 
#52
JakesAy said:
The screw... I just ordered some screws and tuning machine from Aliexpress..
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Yikes - I had that happen to one of my neck screws in a Ray34CA (circa 2012? model). At least for my bass, the original SBMM screws had a different thread depth than "standard" Fender/Squier neck screws and the latter will strip the threads in the neck wood. Ask me how I know LOL :D Just a word of caution.
 
#55
Doctor Morbius said:
Thanks OP for the wiring diagrams. :thumbsup:

I recently bought a Ray4HH (SDOTD) and find the series wiring not to my liking. Fortunately, it looks like converting the pickups to parallel only won't be too difficult.
Click to expand...
It's easy to do, and doing all settings in parallel has more even volume. Watching switch contacts in each setting will tell you where the wires will need to be if you ever doubt the diagram/ color codes.
 
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#57
Hello all, this is my first post ever in this forum.
Thanks so much for the diagrams and all the first hand experience comments. I just rewired my new Ray4 HH to parallel only and loved it, I've never played an EBMM or any other stingray before so I can't compare to the "original stingray sound" but I liked the result, I can see that some might prefer the series sound as it's nice too, but I liked the parallel sound in all 5 switch positions and the best is that the output volume is more even between them. The only difference I found from the diagram is that the com red wires are white on my bass.
 
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#58
Stephen Shapiro said:
Thanks so much for your help, @essej . I did the (parallel-only) mod a bit ago, and it worked like a charm, but I got some buzz from the bridge pickup. I'm sure it's a grounding issue, but I don't really know where to start. I was just gonna double-check my work and resolder the grounding connections for the bridge pickup. I'll report back.
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Hi Stephen. This is an old thread, but a few days ago I bought an SBMM Ray 5 and I'm getting buzzing from the bridge pickup after mod, just like you were. Did you manage to find a solution? I'd really appreciate it if you could share it with me.
 

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